Spritelight, book 2
by Makitk
Summary: A mare finds out what happens when you try to upset the natural balance of things.
1. Chapter 1

"And in local news, several students of the Martin Luther King Jr. high school have gone missing after the school instituted a rule banning the new ponygear fad from their grounds," the human on the news said, and the screen cut to a video of children wearing potentially fake pony tails, fake pony ears, and some who had shaved their hair to make it look like a pony mane.

"Parents are blaming the school for the disappearances," the voice continued, "and the police have started an investigation in the mass disappearance of these students, aged fourteen to eighteen." The screen returned to showing the presenter again, now with a number overlayed on the desk they were sitting behind.

"If you have any information with regards to any of the children as shown on these photographs, please contact your local police station or call the national Amber alert hotline on this number. And now for sports, with..."

The room returned to darkness as I pressed my hoof down on the TV-remote, which rested in front of me on the couch, and I shook my head at what I had just seen. It had taken me a few weeks to familiarize myself with the devices the humans used to keep tabs on what happened around them, since there was no Free Pony Express here.

The papers the humans did have contained unintelligible letters I could not decypher, no matter how I tried with my magic, so they were of no use to me. However, this 'television' thing worked fairly well to keep track of how the humans responded to the chosen few I had transformed so far. And it was not how I had expected them to respond.

"Gone missing," I snorted in disbelief, "I give them the best gift they will ever know, make them the ambassadors of the new times to come, and they hide away?"

I got up from where I had been lying on the couch and walked out to one of the streetside windows, pushing away the dark drapes with my left hoof as I drew near. The night was mostly quiet, the streets illuminated by the tall lamps on either side of it.

The building across the street was where one of my newest targets was sleeping. It was not someone I had imagined choosing for this important task, but I had been forced to deviate from my original plan several times now.

Zecora, and my former mentor Discord, were hot on my hooves and I had resorted to randomly selecting new ambassadors to keep them from anticipating my next move. There was no time to select humans on their magic potential, their good will, or even whether they liked equines or not. I instead moved from one town to the next, randomly picking a school, and just used my spell on whatever group looked most like the ones before them.

It depended on the day and town whether this meant transforming just a few, or more than a dozen, and there had been many a restless night where I had sat in whatever shelter I could find - usually the empty home of some human or some other place like it - silently hoping Discord would not find me before my mana replenished.

As a result of these weeks of restless nights, I could feel my head pounding from a headache that just wouldn't go away. I had been going through the humans' storerooms wherever I managed to gain access to their homes, but few of the items I had found in them matched up to Equestrian products. And some tasted downright nasty when I had sampled them on the tip of my tongue. If the humans had medicine against headaches, I could not find them.

The young boy across the street would wake up tomorrow with the start of a tail growing from his rear. I could just imagine the excited squeal the human foal would give upon realizing he would be turning into a proper colt, instead of having to deal with this damaged human society.

Once the worlds combined, he would have a future that actually led somewhere, instead of dealing with these weird machines and inedible items the humans surrounded themselves with. For a moment I caught myself wondering whether the combining of the worlds would also fix the changes that had happened to me?

Back in Equestria, before I opened the portal to bring me here, my colors had been vibrant, my hooves smooth and functional. Once I set hoof on Earth however, all that changed. My former bright blue mane and tail started to feel heavier on me, their sheen lost when I saw them in the mirror and rogue hairs sticking out from them at odd angles.

My hooves had taken an awkward turn for the worst, with my recent pedicure barely covering the imperfections on them anymore. Had my silver coat covered them in the past, now the hairs stopped just short of them almost like fetlocks. It was a big shock when I first arrived here.

Without the vibrancy of colors of my coat and mane, I could hardly be called Spritelight anymore. Had I been born with this dreary grey coat, I would have perhaps been called Spritedark... It would have launched me into a depression, if I did not have a task to complete.

I nodded to myself and turned away from the window again, looking at the ornaments placed in this abandoned house's living room. Half of the items made no sense. Oddly shaped figurines which looked like nothing in nature that I had ever seen, humanoid figures with parts missing, a bag with weirdly shaped sticks and white balls with little dents in them in a corner of the room. Humans were weird.

I headed back to the wall of glass at the back of the house and used a quick spell to allow myself to pass through the material as if it was not there at all. I lowered my head as I reached the edge of the pool and took a careful sip of it. I would not normally drink from a pool, but the faucets used by the humans were impossible to operate with hooves and I was trying to conserve my magic.

Some of these humans used additives in their pools which made the water taste weird and which made my eyes sting from the fumes coming from them, but there was either a very low concentration of it in this one or not at all. I silently thanked the absent home owner as I needily drank from their pool, my ears turning as they caught the night's sounds.

There was some car revving off in the distance. Probably an impatient driver waiting for the red light to turn green. Those things were nasty. The difference between an Invisibility spell or an Invincibility spell were that the former did not protect against cars speeding towards you, and the latter is non-existent. I already had to jump out of the way several times now on account of drivers who did not see me crossing the roads due to my invisibility spell.

I do not have wings, like the Alicorn princesses or the Pegasi back home, and the transformation spells drain my mana too much to use teleport spells effectively, so walking was how I got from one place to the next.

It took some effort to stay out of sight, but I felt I was making some good progress nonetheless. I did not get to follow my original plan anymore, but I was still making more ambassadors who would lead this world into the new times. Any progress is good progress, right?

I looked at the stars above and tried to gauge the time by them. It was still early in the night, I knew, and the humans had a strange way of filling up empty streets shortly before midnight as they returned home from wherever they had gone earlier that evening, so I knew I should stay away from the main roads for a little while longer.

Still, I could start making my way to the next town and arrive there before morning if I galloped along the highway. I would have to see about finding another school and place to rest at when I arrived there.

I pushed my way out of the backyard of the house through the broken fence and hid behind a small bush as I surveyed my surroundings. It was nice and peaceful except for a man and his dog walking across the road. The dog was leashed, of course. I had yet to see a human who allowed their pets to roam free.

I waited for them to pass, then quickly cantered in the other direction. There was plenty of shelter between me and the main roads, and I stuck to the shadows where possible to evade what few humans were actually outside as well.

I had to duck behind a house when a car suddenly swerved into the street from a crossroads up ahead, a bright light mounted on top of it swerving left and right as it surveyed the area around it. Police officers, I knew. They were most likely looking for the 'missing' children or anyone who may be responsible for it. There was no way I was going to show myself to those people.

Once the car pulled away I moved away from the building and watched the red lights on the back of the car disappear as I rounded the corner from the driveway onto the sidewalk again - straight into some human walking there.

"Ooph," the human exhumed as I bumped into their stomach, and they fell back onto the pavement while I felt all my hairs stand on end.

I swiveled my head back to face the human on the ground before me, and before I realized I was doing it, I felt my magic leave my horn... My sensitive ears, perked up as they were due to alarm, picked up the human's faint groan as they got hit again - and then they emitted a louder one as the changes started...

I watched in amazement as my transformation spell, fueled by my sudden panic at being discovered, forced this human into a faster transformation than any of my previous victims: I gasped as I saw their body deform under cover of their clothing, accompanied by the loud snapping of bones being restructured and the painful whining of the soon-to-be new pony.

I quickly moved in to put a hoof to their muzzle as it grew out of their human face, but could not prevent their glasses from falling off of their nose in the process. The fortunate soul stared up at me with fear and confusion as their eyes grew into proper pony eyes, and I soon was fighting off randomly flailing limbs as they tried to push me away.

"I'm sorry for the unexpected change," I started, looking around to see if anyone had come to the sounds the thrashing pony was making, "but it's for the best. I promise. You're receiving a gift that would be yours eventually anyways, you're just lucky to get it before most others."

My words were met with a loud howl as the changes finalized, and the human's clothes tore open around the pony's new body while fur sprouted all over their form. It was a light blue, almost the color of turquoise - although it was hard to tell exactly in the orange light from the streetlamps.

The pony's struggling wound down while they closed their rose-coloured eyes, and I lifted my hoof from their muzzle as they stopped grumbling, moving it instead to wipe their long mane out of their face. It was shaded in a darker tone at the base, leading to lighter tips, but it had a rose color to it as well.

I sighed and looked them over, using my magic to disintegrate their clothes from around them and realizing at once the former human had turned into a small mare. The fur of her coat was stuck together in places from the sweat of the transformation, but that was nothing a brush couldn't fix.

Her former jacket had hidden a pair of lovely wings from sight, and I admired them even as they twitched from the mare's brain finishing the connections to her new limbs. If she managed to use those, she could do what I could only dream of, or do with great magical effort; to soar above the clouds and see my magic wash out from human to human - turning them all into proper ponies.

"Ah, but I'd have to be an Alicorn for that to work," I chided myself, and turned away from the new ambassador to the Earthborn Pegasi to continue on my way.

A pair of hooves immediately grabbed a hold of my right hindleg and I jerked to a stop, looking back to find a determined look on the new mare's face as she held onto me for dear life, her ears facing front and trembling lightly.

"What's the big id-eep!" she exclaimed, then immediately moved her wings to cover her muzzle at the sound of her own voice. Her eyes grew even more when she realized what she was covering her mouth with, and I could just see the cogs turning in her head as her body language revealed all.

"Yes, you're a pony. Yes, you're a mare. If you weren't female before, I'm sorry. You are now. Also, I kind of have to go, so if you would let me go?" I offered, but my words only led to her clinging to my leg tighter than before.

"No, really. I have to go," I repeated, trying to tug my hoof out of her grasp.

I needed a few tugs to get it free, and I briskly turned back for the direction of the main road. My ears turned on my head as I heard awkward flapping and stumbling hoofsteps behind me, but I had no time to wait for the newfound pony to find her hoofing. I had to get as close to the main road as possible before the nighttime traffic would catch up to me.

"Hey!" the mare called out, and I sighed to myself as the hoofbeats started to fall in with a proper trot. I sped up to a canter, which led to more stumbling behind me, but then I heard the mare's speed up to a gallop..

I, too, started to gallop to stay ahead, chancing to look back to see the stumbling pony follow me with her wings flapping oddly in an attempt to get her more speed. She was swerving left to right and barely managed to get her hooves under her each step she took, but was still closing in for some reason.

I grumbled and slowed to a trot again, my ears falling back in annoyance as I waited for her to catch up. It didn't take long for her to fall in with my trot to my left side, her wings still moving awkwardly as she tried to get them to fold to her side.

"Hey, don't go like that!" she snorted, half out of breath, and I looked sideways at her.

"I told you I have to go. I can't wait for some random filly like you to come to terms with the gift they're given. I have a deadline, you know?" I bit to her, and her ears flopped down while she fell behind a little, a flush marring her cheeks.

"Well, I didn't want to.. Hey!" she started, then realized she was falling behind and ran up to close the distance. "I mean, I just wanted to.. er.. Am I dreaming or did I die or something?"

I shook my head at the stumbling mare, crossing the empty crossroads over to the next block of houses. "Not a dream, and my magic was certainly not intended to kill," I answered. "Why?"

The mare finally got her wings to fold right and looked thoughtful. "Not a dream?"

I shook my head, flicking my left ear from annoyance at having to repeat myself, but turning for the nearest bush as I saw some headlights in the distance. "No, not a dream. Now get down here or they'll see you."

The mare obediently followed me to hide behind the bush, awkwardly sitting herself down beside me with her eyes flicking back and forth between her own legs and mine as if trying to see if she did it right.

"Well, I mean," she started, then blushed deeply and looked away.

"What?" I asked, my ears turned up to listen for the sound of the approaching car.

"I can't fucking believe this is real!" the cute mare exclaimed, and I felt the need to facehoof. 


	2. Chapter 2

The car passed us by without slowing, and I pushed up on my hooves to look down the road to see if any others may follow. Seeing another car come from the same direction as the first one had, with more headlights trailing behind it, I lowered myself on the soft grass with a deep sigh.

"Well, this is just marvellous," I grumbled to myself with a quick shake of my head. "I should have reached the main road already instead of being stuck here with a hopeless mare."

"Hey!" the mare to my side exclaimed to that, but I paid her no mind. I instead reached out with my magic to tentatively feel for the energy signatures of Discord or Zecora.

"Ooh," the mare cooed, and I flattened my ears. "I didn't know unicorn horns really glowed when they used magic. I always thought it was just a gimmick."

It was difficult to focus with someone babbling in my ears, but I managed to finish my sweep of the surrounding energy. Zecora's was the only energy signature I could find, and she was still two towns out from where we were. I smiled at that, knowing my decision to transform groups, instead of individuals, was making it harder for her to follow behind. She had to go visit each and every single one of my ambassadors, while I could just gallop ahead.

"So did someone transform you too, or were you born like this? It hurt a lot when you transformed me, but I guess that's natural? It's not like I didn't know pain before this; I've always had bad knees," the babbling continued, and I turned my attention to the turquoise mare beside me.

"Do you have an off switch?" I asked, not trying to hide my annoyance in the least.

The mare scrunched her nose and huffed, then looked down. "Well, I'm sorry for just trying to make conversation," she grumbled.

"You'd better think of how you can make this world accept you as an ambassador. Accept the inevitable merger between this world and Equestria. Accept that they will all become ponies before this is done," I stated, lifting myself up from the ground a little to look down the road.

"Or maybe you should just wait until the traffic dies down and return to your home," I added. "I need to be in the next town over before dawn."

"Why?" the mare wondered, looking up at me again. "Can't I tag behind? I have so much to ask you!"

I shook my head at that. "I can't be slowed down by a stumbling mare who doesn't have her proper hoofing yet. I need to stay ahead of things and get enough ambassadors made on this planet to make the humans see there's no stopping this."

"Stopping what?"

I facehoofed. "Didn't you listen? The merger of Equestria and Earth."

"When's that going to happen?"

"When there's enough of you to automate the process, I'd imagine," I sighed. "I know there needs to be enough magical potential on this world to establish the link, and there should be enough ponies to get the desired effect. The last we'd want is to give the changelings more of an edge than proper ponies, right?"

"I'm not sure what you're saying," the mare muttered, looking completely lost.

"I'm saying I'm wasting my time trying to explain this to you while I should have been on the highway leading out of town already!" I snapped, and her ears flopped down low as she looked away in shame.

I turned my attention back to the road, while trying to figure out my next move. This new pony was testing my patience. It was no use explaining magic to a Pegasus anyway, but this one used to be a human. I had yet to see a human wield magic in any of its forms.

The mare beside me coughed uneasily, and I glanced in her direction again.

"Er, if you're trying to get out of town, why are you on this road?" she asked carefully, her ears moving on her head as if she was expecting me to snap at her again.

"Because this road leads out to the main road which leads out to the highway," I explained, but the mare quickly shook her head.

"No it doesn't," she offered, and I frowned at her.

"What do you mean, it doesn't?" I asked.

"The main road doesn't connect to the highway for a while. They removed the overpass that used to be there after a truck flew off of it and into a building last year. They're still busy building a tunnel instead. Traffic has been redirected through town ever since the accident. If you want to get to the highway, you have to use the detour which goes that way." she explained, pointing behind us with a hoof, and almost falling over where she was seated.

I turned my head to look in the direction she was pointing at, and raised an eyebrow. "But every town before this had its highway connected to the main road," I started.

"Yeah, but the accident caused such outrage against overpasses that the town council decided to dig a tunnel instead. Did you use an old map or something?"

I flushed and looked away, frowning at myself. "I can't read your stupid human alphabet."

"Oh," the mare realized, looking away herself but then quickly looking back at me again with a bright smile. "I can!"

I raised an eyebrow at her and tilted my head a little. "So?"

"So, I could help you read things you can't read, duh," she returned.

I blinked as I realized with a shock that she was right. What was the one thing that had stopped my progress in the past weeks? Not my former mentor Discord. Not Zecora. It had been my inability to read up on where I was headed. My inability to read maps.

Sure, I could go stand at one of the maps around town and sort of plot my course on it, but I mostly had to go from the layout of things. The red dot was me, I had quickly figured out, and then there were all those lines that were roads, and the blue things were lakes and rivers... It had not been too different from the maps back home.

The real issue had been the names of places, roads, everything. I could not read any of it. Nor the signs plastered over the maps. Nor those along the road. Considering what the mare had told me earlier, I must have missed something important on the yellow and red and white and blue signs on the lampposts on either side of the road I had been following.

"You know," I started, smirking lightly to myself, "you have a point there."

"Yeah, see? You need me!" the mare exclaimed excitedly. "And I can hang about and ask you questions in return for my help, right?"

I sighed and stared at her. "Don't you have other things to do though?"

"Like what?" she wondered.

"Well, job, school, working to get the humans to accept your new fate?" I mused.

"Can't do my job with hooves, don't have school, and if I show myself like this to the wrong kind of person they'd capture me and dissect me," the mare shrugged matter-of-factly.

I felt all blood pull away from my face and shook my head in disgust. "Dissect you?"

The mare smirked and nodded in shame. "Yeah, humans aren't that good at accepting people or ponies who differ from the norm..."

All of a sudden the disappearances of my ambassadors started to make sense, and I felt my stomach turn. Could this mean that they... No. No, I couldn't think like that. This mare here followed me into hiding within moments after she was transformed. The others would have done the same. I had to think they were still alive, but in hiding.

This changed everything, however. No longer could I just randomly select my ambassadors. If they were to be taken by the humans, and murdered for being the ponies they had every right to be, I had to pick those capable of dealing with it. No longer going for the innocent ones who would be most accepted, but for the stronger ones who could actually make a difference.

A turquoise hoof moved in front of my face and I blinked.

"Hello? You still there?" the mare wondered, looking concerned.

I smiled at her and offered my right forehoof to her. "Yes, I am. If we're going to be traveling together, we may as well exchange names. My name's Spritelight. What shall we call you?" 


	3. Chapter 3

I stared at the slight curl in the mare's tail as it flicked this way and that while she ambled along the road. Soft muttering came from her as she led me down the right road leading for the quickest way out of town, and I shook my head as variations on the same name broke through the silence of the night:

"Turquoise Flyer, Turquoise Speedster, Turquoise Runner, Turquoise Cloudchaser, Tur..."

"Turkey Headless," I suggested, making the mare in front of me stumble over her own hooves and turn back to face me with a flush on her cheeks!

"H...hey, that's not fair," she pouted. "You have a neat name already and I just have my stupid human name that doesn't fit me anymore."

"You do know you don't need to have a colour in your name, right?" I returned to her as I continued walking, passing her by as she worked on a reply to that. "Or have two names, for that matter."

"But you have two names too," the mare protested. "Sprite and Light, right?"

"You might think that," I started, with an annoyed flick of my tail in her direction, "but, contrary to popular belief, it's just the one word; Spritelight. No space."

"And you don't have a family name or something?" came the question as the mare hurried to trot up to my left side.

I shrugged at the question. "Never knew my family."

The mare's head dipped down a moment, and I suddenly found her bumping into my side, her head nuzzling up at the side of my neck. I immediately stopped walking and watched her need another step or two before she did as well.

"What was that?" I demanded, feeling my ears twitch on my head from the strangeness of what had just happened.

The mare scraped a hoof over the ground and shrugged lightly. "I dunno... I felt like you needed some comforting. I don't know how ponies usually do it, but that felt like the most natural?"

I snorted and made a show of stepping around her before continuing on my way. "I did not need any such thing," I dismissed her words, trying to fight back the tears I felt burning behind my eyes. "Don't do it again, ok? Or I may call you Turkeyhead from now on."

There was a stomp of a hoof behind me as the mare clearly disagreed with my words, but then I heard her hooves fall back in rhythm with mine and a meek voice said "Have it your way..."

I nodded quickly to that as I regained my composure, but stopped walking as we reached the crossroads we had been heading for. I looked in all directions, trying to remember what the other mare had told me. "We have to turn right here, right?"

"Left, actually," she mumbled as she moved past, turning for the direction she had said.

"Right," I nodded, falling in line behind her again.

"No, we went left," she corrected me, and I sent a spark of electricity from my horn to her flank. She yelped from the sensation, launched herself forward, missed the step she was trying to make, and fell down on her face.

"Don't be wise with me, you know what I meant," I chuckled, using my magic to help her up on her hooves again.

She smiled weakly at me, and I found I could not but smile back. "Just get us over to the next town before dawn, ok?" I asked, "We'll need to find a shelter there before we can make plans on what to do exactly."

"What do you want to do, exactly, anyway?" she wondered, trotting up to my right side for once and looking sideways at me.

"I already told you; I need to turn the right kinds of people into ponies, so that Equestria and this world can merge, and you all can lead happier lives. The two worlds were torn apart in the past, and nopony has tried mending it before, to my knowledge. It has led to such destruction on Earth, and so much pain. This has to be corrected."

She nodded slowly at that, but I could see she didn't grasp it in its entirety.

"Don't worry, I'll deal with the details," I offered, "You just find us a shelter and whatever else we need along the way."

The mare put her right forehoof up to her head in an awkward salute. "Yes ma'am," she stated, then faceplanted herself on the pavement again.

"And you may want to work on your balance," I decided to add, shaking my head with a chuckle as I lifted her from the floor again.

We walked side-by-side until we got to the highway. We quickened our pace to a canter as we traveled along it, gallopping in short bursts before returning to a canter again to save our energy. The turquoise mare was still trying to come up with a name for herself, and her lack of focus caused her to have to catch up to me more often than not.

We eventually made it to the next town and came to a stop in a copse of trees between the highway and the nearby buildings. I checked the sky again to see how much time had passed, but a mass of clouds had moved in and it was impossible for me to get any hint as to where the moon could be.

"Damn clouds," I grumbled, and sank through my hooves to catch my breath.

"What's wrong with the clouds?" the mare wondered in-between panting breaths.

"I can't see how low the moon is with the clouds hiding it away," I offered, "I don't know how much time we have remaining before dawn breaks if I can't see the passing of time in the sky."

"It's about five," the mare shrugged. "The sun comes up in an hour or two."

"How do you know?" I asked in confusion.

"There's a clock down the road there at the bus station. It says 5:03," she explained, and I stared in the direction she was pointing at.

"Yeah, see, that's not a clock," I snorted. "A clock is round and has two or three horns to point at the time."

"Horns?"

"Or feathers, or fake hoofs. It depends on where they were made," I nodded. "Now what you have over there is just some weird display thing with wobbly lines and scratches over it that I can't make heads or tails of. That's not a clock."

"Yes it is," the mare decided. "What you're talking about sounds like an analog clock. But that there is a digital one. Most clocks around are digital these days."

"Which is why I have to look at the sky for the time," I sighed. "I can't read that digital stuff."

"But you have me now? I can tell you what the time is?" the mare offered, and I smirked back up to her.

"The time, yes. Your own name, not quite."

She huffed and looked away, and I grinned at the back of her head. She was so easy to tease! I was starting to enjoy her company.


	4. Chapter 4

"Ok, so the recent economic crisis hit hard in this state. A lot of buildings that were under construction never got finished, and those that did have been empty ever since," the mare spoke as we trotted into town, and I found myself nodding slowly at her words.

"If we're lucky, the local mall should have some empty stores which could make for great shelter, and we could probably get some grub to boot!" she stated excitedly, grinning back at me.

I raised an eyebrow at her. "Get some grub?"

"Get food. I don't know about you, but I'm as hungry as a horse!"

"You are a hor... you know what, never mind," I sighed, rubbing my face with a hoof. "Where is this mall you spoke of?"

"Just around the corner, really," she giggled, leading the way.

I followed her around the corner, but stopped as the place got into view. A large tarmac field stretched out for what seemed like miles, with storefronts found on three of its sides. Hedges, streetlamps, trashcans, and rectangular stones were placed in an odd pattern on the tarmac, creating a strange sort of maze.

The mare was trotting past the stores on the left, but was not even paying them much attention. She looked to be heading for the largest storefront at the back of the tarmac, a store with a large red sign over the entrance.

"This is a mall?" I asked, looking around and feeling about as small as when I first set hoof in Canterlot.

"Well, these are just the outside shops. Over there's the actual mall. Sixty stores with supermarkets and shoestores and everything under one roof," the mare chuckled, pointing over to the large glass wall under the big red sign.

"Sixty?" I repeated, looking around myself at the dozen stores on either side. "Including these ones?"

"No, these are just the outside stores," the turquoise mare sighed, stopping to look at me. "I just told you, Spritey."

"Spritelight," I corrected her. "You mean to tell me that there's three times as many stores inside there than there are outside here, 'Turkey'?"

The mare's ears drooped a bit as I used that name for her, but then she nodded slowly. "Two floors of stores, thirty stores per floor."

"And you think we're safe there?" I continued.

"Well, yeah.. the beauty of it is that there's so many stores there that they can't possibly find us," she reasoned.

I shrugged and cantered over to the glass wall, peering through it at the heavy metal shutters behind it. "And you have a plan to get us inside, I take it?"

The mare trotted after me, looking up at the wall herself. "Well, I was thinking..."

I turned to face her, "Yes?"

"With your magic and all," she coughed uneasily.

I sighed and looked back at the glass wall. "Great. I do need to conserve my mana so I can do what I came here for, but sure... how does this work?"

"Well, when they open the mall they put a key in that device over there," the mare pointed at a small box, "and then the shutters will roll up. The doors are automatic and should open once the shutters are up."

"Or I could just use a spell to make us ethereal so we can walk through these walls," I shrugged.

"YOU CAN DO THAT?!" the mare shouted, and I winced as her voice rang out across the tarmac field.

"...don't shout, Turkey," I chided her, then focused on the door again. "Glass and some kind of metal. Few inches between. You should go first because I have to focus my magic to surround you. Don't hesitate, just walk forward when I..."

I stopped as the mare promptly walked forward - into the glass wall. She shook her head from the bump, and stumbled back.

"As I was saying," I sighed, "Walk forward when I say so."

The mare rubbed her forehead with a hoof and nodded in embarrassment. "Thanks for the warning."

I shook my head in mild amusement, but then focused my energy into my horn, sending it off to surround the other. As the silver light of my magic covered her, her colours became more vibrant and for a moment I caught a glimpse of what she would look like in Equestria.

"...beautiful..." I gasped out.

"Huh?" the mare wondered, and I shook my head.

"Nothing! Just walk forward," I quickly stated. "It should be fine now."

She raised an eyebrow in confusion, but still turned around to tentatively push a hoof up against the glass. It passed through without effort, and she quickly cantered through with a squeal of excitement! I waited for her to pass through completely before I pulled my magic away from her. A moment later, and I passed through the double walls myself.

The mare was happily gallopping around in the large space behind the walls, running circles around a large fountain set up in the center of the place. A place far larger than I had ever seen. Large hallways led off in four directions from the center plaza, each holding some fifteen stores on two levels.

Most of the upper level stores looked to be vacant, with large signs plastered all over the glass walls and nothing in the displays. There were just one or two of them with their displays filled with assorted items, but even those had signs plastered over them.

I slowly walked up to the center plaza, looking around in amazement, up until the other mare cantered over and grinned at me. "What do you think, Spritelight?"

I shook my head a moment. "It's big."

"And largely empty. We have plenty of space to choose from!" the other grinned.

"Considering most of the upper level stores seem to be empty, those would be our best bet, right?" I asked, and she nodded. "Although I can't understand those signs."

"Oh! Right, so most of those say "space for rent"," the mare offered, pointing around. "But those stores there which aren't closed yet have signs that say "sale" and "closing soon". Most of the items they offer are down in price for like 75% or so. It will attract a lot of customers when they open."

I pondered that explanation, looking at where those stores were located. "Ok, so we may want to find a place out of the way of those places."

"Good thinking," the mare giggled.

"Thinking is one thing I'm good at, Turkey," I winked.

"My name's not," she started to protest, but then she lowered her head. "Fine. I guess I'm going to have to watch my back around Thanksgiving now..."


	5. Chapter 5

The storefront was empty, dark, and had about a year's worth of dust covering every surface. From the empty shelves to the register, to the rat's skeleton in a corner of the room - there was dust everywhere.

The employee lounge in the back was not much better off, although the mice and rats had had a feast on whatever had been left in the storage cabinets long before we arrived. There were droppings everywhere, and it wasn't long before I felt one fall apart under my forehoof.

"Ew," I said, lifting my hoof and using my magic to get the gritty material out from under it.

"Yeah, it may need a bit of cleaning, Spritey," Turkey offered, "but that's easily done with your magic, right?"

I glared at her and took a step back, poking her left wing with my horn. "How about I open the door, and you use your wings to blow all of this stuff out through it?"

Turkey blinked and looked back at her wing, tentatively lifting it from where it had rested against her side. "Oh, hey, forgot I had these things..."

"You also forgot my name is Spritelight, not Spritey," I smirked, walking over to the front of the store again and opening the door. "Go on, flap them. Get a storm going. Should be easy for a Pegasus like you."

Turkey stood in the opening of the employee lounge, just looking at me in confusion.

"Your wings. Flap them," I repeated.

Turkey looked back at her wings and slowly unfolded them. "Just flap them?"

"Yeah. Just flap them," I told her.

Turkey slowly moved her wings up and down, looking very uncomfortable at the motion. Even with them moving at such a slow speed, it was enough to cause the dust in her immediate area to move and drift up in a small cloud.

"Ok, so just flap them a bit harder, and don't breathe in," I warned, placing my hoof to my forehead - just beside my horn - as she did just that.

"Ha..." Turkey started, her wings moving up a bit, and I took a step back out of the store.

"Haa..." Turkey continued, and I took another step as her wings rose up higher.

"TCHOOO!" Turkey finally sneezed and, with a massive flap of her wings, launched herself deeper into the store!

The fast movement of her wings was all the dust needed to blast out of the open door like it got shot from a cannon, and I had to jump to the side to prevent getting it all plastered over my coat! Laying there off to the side, I heard Turkey prepare for another sneeze, and quickly used my magic to keep the door open.

Another blast of dust flew past as she did, and I shook my head at the poor Pegasi inside. "I told you not to breathe in," I muttered as a third sneeze followed, then a fourth, with considerably less dust following after the sounds.

When Turkey finally calmed down I chanced to look into the store and saw her laying in a crumpled mess in the far corner of the employee lounge, somehow having turned herself upside-down with her rear up against the wall and her wings drooped to either side of her. She was still sniffling and her eyes looked red from the dust that had gotten into them.

There was little dust still floating around, the majority of which having been ejected through the open door, or forced in a thick layer up against the glass panes to either side of it, so I trotted back inside and closed the door behind me, pulling the curtain down to keep prying eyes out.

"I told you not to breathe it in, Turkey," I muttered, walking calmly into the employee lounge while the mare rubbed at her muzzle with a hoof.

"I don't think I've ever sneezed this much when I was still a human," Turkey muttered from her upside-down position.

"I would imagine human noses aren't as sensitive as ours, considering how small they are," I chuckled, using my magic to pick her up and turn her right-side up. "You have some powerful wings there, hun."

"I thought my name was Turkey?" Turkey wondered, trying to get her wings to fold again.

"You may want to preen those before you fold them. I see some misaligned feathers here and there," I warned her.

"Preen them? Are you serious?" she returned, letting out a whine after as she turned her head to look back at her wings. "Aww, man... I don't know the first thing about preening."

"Well, don't look at me. I'm a Unicorn," I sighed. "Ask me about magic, and I know what to do. Wings, not so much."

Turkey sat down on her rear, moving her wings a little awkwardly. "Oh, great."

"Hey, you used to be a human, right?" I asked, prancing about a little.

"Until you bumped into me, yes," Turkey muttered, trying to get at her wings with her hooves and failing miserably.

"I think Pegasi use their teeth," I commented. "Do you know of anything that could get rid of this headache I've been having? I've tried to find some in the last few houses I stayed at, but I haven't been able to find any."

"Yeah, it's called aspirin," Turkey replied absentmindedly, reaching down with her head to bite at the rogue feathers sticking out of her wings.

"Asprin?" I repeated, and raised an eyebrow at her humming an answer.

"Asprin," I said to myself, looking around the empty room. "I won't find any asprin in this place. Where do humans usually keep it?"

"Drugstore," Turkey mumbled, her eyes focused on nothing in particular as she was putting her feathers back in place.

"Hey, are you ok?" I wondered, lowering my head to look at her. Her eyes looked a bit glazed over, and it took her a moment to realize I was staring at her.

She pulled back with a flush on her cheeks, blinking her eyes heavily. "Huh? What?"

"You zoned out there a moment, didn't you?" I realized.

Turkey blinked some more, then lowered her ears and nodded with a dumb smile on her face. "Y...yeah."

"So, asprin?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Er, well, can I finish this first?" Turkey asked, and I sat down with a sigh.

"Yeah, sure, don't mind me..." I muttered, watching with some annoyance as Turkey returned to straightening out her wings with a look as if she was in some kind of trance.

"Heh, Turkey Trance," I chuckled to myself.


	6. Chapter 6

The light of the early dawn shone through the windows above while the sound of our hoofsteps reverberated in the empty mall. Turkey was leading me to something called a "drugstore", to get some "asprin".

"Aspirin," Turkey corrected me again.

"That's what I'm saying; asprin," I threw back at her. "Besides, I don't care what it's called, as long as it gets rid of this headache I've been having."

"It should," Turkey mused, "unless pony physiology differs too much from that of humans. We're here."

I looked up at the metal shutters of the store and then back at Turkey. "Really? More of these things?"

Turkey shrugged helplessly. "It's to keep thieves out. And, considering I don't have my wallet on me, we kind of count as thieves ourselves."

"It's a necessity in our case," I returned with a smirk. "Ok, same as before; you go first and I'll follow behind."

Turkey nodded and I sent my magic out to help her through the shutters, then followed behind immediately after. Turkey continued into the store, nodding at some weird gates.

"Make sure to levitate the package I'm giving you over those gates or the alarm will go off," she warned. "All of the stuff in the store is electronically tagged."

"Er, sure.. whatever," I shrugged, following behind.

Turkey turned into an aisle and looked around herself, then pointed a wing at one particular section of it. "There it is. Do you know if you get side effects from caffeine?"

I just stared at her.

"Yeah, let's play it safe. Take the white box there," she pointed. "Second from the left next to the one with the yellow stripe on it. That's without caffeine and should be strong enough for any headache."

I stared at the box, a few shelves above us, and rose up on my hind legs to take the package between my teeth. "Fwish one?"

"Yeah, that's it," Turkey giggled as I fell down on all fours again.

A sudden noise startled us, and all four of our ears turned to the back of the store.

"That sounds like a store employee arriving early," Turkey offered with a wince. "We got to get out of here, now!"

We both ran for the front of the store, and I started to prepare my spell to let Turkey through - completely forgetting about the alarm. The high-pitched sound made my headache only grow worse, and I heard the sound of something falling further back in the store.

Knowing we had little time before whomever was there would come rushing to the front, I continued with my spell and Turkey quickly passed through the shutters. I looked back at the store employee rushing into the front and fired off my transformation spell at them before passing through the shutters myself, gallopping after Turkey - back towards the safety of our store shelter!

As we passed the other stores along the way, some of the shutters started to slide up, adding to our sense of urgency. We galloped up the stairs to the upper floor, down the gallery, and skidded to a stop in front of the store we chose as a shelter.

Turkey waited for me to unlock the door, then bolted through it, and straight into the employee lounge. I closed the door behind us, followed behind, and spat out the box to the floor of the lounge once I had closed that door as well.

"That was close," Turkey panted, and I nodded at her.

"But I have a new ambassador because of it," I chuckled.

"A new ambassador?" Turkey wondered, nudging the box on the floor with her right hoof.

"That employee will be a pony like yourself in a few days' time," I revealed, and Turkey's eyes went wide. "Call it an extra safety measure. She won't cause a scene once she realizes she's growing a tail. You said it yourself; humans dissect people who look funny."

"I didn't say that!" Turkey protested, shaking her head. "But even so, you shouldn't turn random people into ponies!"

"And why not?" I asked of her, raising an eyebrow. "Everyone on this planet will be transformed into a pony before the worlds merge anyway, what does it matter who gets transformed first?"

I didn't wait for her to answer, but levitated the box of 'aspirin' in front of her face. "Now can you please tell me how to use this stuff so I can get rid of my headache?"

Turkey walked me through the steps of using the medicine, but the small package meant I had to use my magic to get the pills out. She said I had to drink water with it, so we looked around for something to pour the water in. One of the cabinets had a package of plastic cups, and I pulled some from it to give both of us a cup of water from the faucet.

I left the knob turned loose enough when I closed the tap to allow Turkey to open the faucet with her teeth if needed, and lay down on the ground while the aspirin did its work.

"So all I had needed to look for was a box with these symbols on it?" I asked, but Turkey immediately shook her head.

"No. Unless you actually know how to read what's in the package, you shouldn't open what you find," she answered. "There's some dangerous stuff in this world, which could cause you to feel really sick, or even cause you to die if you ingest it."

"Why would humans store something that could kill them?" I wondered.

"Because it's not for them. It's mostly pesticides to keep unwanted insects and animals out of their homes, stores, farms..."

"Oh. And they store that in with their medicines?" I asked, taking a sip of my water.

"Not usually, no. But out of the way of children and pets where possible," Turkey stated, taking a sip of her own cup of water but spilling most of it.

"Don't worry about that. You get used to it eventually," I told her, smiling gently in her direction.

"And you turned me into this because the worlds of Earth and Equestria are supposedly merging together?" she asked, wiping some droplets from the fur on her chin.

"Well, more to let them merge together again. They were once the same place, you know?" I offered.

"No, I don't know. That's why I'm asking," Turkey said. "What if this doesn't work out? What if you only end up with a bunch of ponies here on Earth and a bunch of ponies there in Equestria, and these worlds just stay apart?"

I stared down at my cup and shrugged softly.

"You don't know, do you?" Turkey mused.

"I don't, no. I only know what I've managed to put together from the information in the Canterlot archives, the Crystal Empire's library, and other lost tomes," I explained.

"There's every evidence that these two worlds are supposed to be the same single world, but I don't know how they split, or if this is even going to work. But it's the best bet I've got," I told her.

"So what if you transform some humans into ponies and they feel absolutely miserable about it?" Turkey asked.

"Do you?" I returned.

Turkey looked down at herself but shook her head. "Not me. I actually feel liberated."

I chuckled at that and rested my head on the floor, falling sideways. "It's been a long night, Turkey. I need to get a few hours of rest in. We can talk about this after I wake up again, if you want?"

Turkey nodded and stifled a yawn. "Good idea."

"I'm full of good ideas," I chuckled, closing my eyes to rest.


	7. Chapter 7

I woke to the sound of heavy breathing, and blinked my eyes open to the most awkward-looking sight I had seen since I had seen myself do it in a mirror; Turkey lay with her face smooshed against the floor, one of her forelegs resting beside it. Her hind legs held her rump up in the air, her tail resting over her back, while the other of her forelegs was awkwardly rubbing up against her wet vagina.

I blinked a few times, then felt the need to squeeze my hindlegs together as the sight stirred something inside. I had seen Turkey in the light of my magic, her colours as vibrant as they would be in Equestria, and it had been enough for me to develop feelings for her. Feelings I couldn't quite explain.

No, wait. It had started before. When she leaned in against me on the road. That soft touch I had been so unfamiliar with.

Or had it been the simple fact I had watched her transform while I held her down with my hooves? Had that created some kind of magical bond between us that had festered and taken possession of me?

I fidgeted a little as my mind was trying to figure out when I had started to feel for this former human, this pony now exploring her mare bits in plain sight of me, but my mind was slowly drowned out by the smells and sounds wafting through the air.

Ignoring the sounds of a thousand humans all talking among one another while shopping. Those were two closed doors away. No, the stuttering breaths let out by Turkey, the withheld moans as she imagined me still being asleep, the soft squish of her hoof pressing up against her nethers.

The smell of her arousal was clear, even above that of the cinnamon buns wafting in from the mall area. To be honest, the cinnamon scent added to my own arousal from the smell, and I soon was on my hooves to push my muzzle up against her wet rump, breathing her scent in deeply!

"A-Ahn!" Turkey exclaimed as my muzzle joined her hoof, and I felt her shudder in place from the unexpected touch. Knowing she would protest if I gave her a chance, my tongue quickly lashed out to lap over her crotch and I found her hoof fall down as she lost all control over it.

I licked my muzzle and ducked my head between her hindlegs, making sure my horn rested right up against her vagina. "Tongue or horn?" I simply asked, and I saw the confusion on the mare's face.

"I... I don't... I..." Turkey started, and I pressed my horn up against her nethers a bit more, the tip barely slipping in. "AAH... H...hor... nnngh..." she gasped, and I tilted my head to let my horn slip in more.

Turkey moaned from the feeling and I tilted my head further, letting my horn slip in until it was at the right angle, and then pushing it slowly into her body. I stopped as her rump hit my forehead, and then grinned softly to myself as I focused my energy into my horn, making it spark with magic potential.

It was just a tease, really, I did not mean for her to suddenly orgasm on my face... but she did, and I closed my eyes from the splashes of her climax washing out against them! The mare's voice rang out in her excitement, and her wings were flapping oddly in just about any direction, but there was nothing I could do about it. Trying to silence her with my magic would just send her into another orgasm...

As her first orgasm as a mare ran its course, I felt Turkey's weight settle on my horn and slowly lowered my head to let her rest on the floor, then pulled my horn out from her once she stopped grabbing at it with her inner muscles. I lifted a hoof up to wipe my face clean, then looked at the spasming pony on the floor.

"Well, now... I said you were getting a gift when I accidentally transformed you," I started with a grin, still keeping my hind legs close together as the event had made me quite aroused myself. "I just didn't know you were this excited about it."

Turkey cast me a hopeless attempt at an evil stare, but then drooped her ears while trying to catch her breath. I took a few steps around her to stand closer to her face, then put my soiled foreleg in front of her.

"Now, considering I was so kind to help you just now," I started, and I saw Turkey's eyes grow larger as she seemed to get the point before I had voiced it, "perhaps you can repay the favor by cleaning my hoof for me? Just look at the mess you made."

Turkey swallowed and looked up from my hoof, shaking her head meekly.

"No?" I wondered, raising an eyebrow and feeling something wet slide down the side of my face. "It's a natural thing for us ponies to lick each other clean after copulation, you know?"

Turkey winced and struggled to scamper away, only leading to her falling properly on her side and flailing her weakened limbs at me. "Please..."

I frowned at Turkey and felt a larger blob of wetness droop down in the middle between my eyes, then off the side of my muzzle. I licked it away and had to close my eyes a moment as I savoured the taste. "Hm... for Celestia's sake... if you don't do it soon, I'll have to lick it myself. You taste... hmm..." I found myself muttering.

Turkey let out a soft whine, but I felt her head move closer to my hoof and then a tongue carefully touching just a single part of it before retreating again. "Ew..." she muttered, and pulled back again, trying to get her hooves under her.

I shrugged at her and leaned my head down myself, watching droplets fall on the floor as I proceeded to lick my own hoof clean, then used it to wipe my face again. "Suit yourself," I shrugged.

It took me a while to get everything out of my fur, and I even had to use my magic and some tapwater to clean my face properly. All the while Turkey just stood awkwardly in a corner of the room, her rump up in the corner, her head hung low, and her eyes watching me in a mixture of horror and genuine interest at watching me clean myself.

Considering she most likely would not come out of that corner on her own, I simply picked her up with my magic, turned her upside-down so her flailing hooves would be facing the ceiling, and used more tapwater to clean her where needed. Once that was done I set her down again and snorted at her.

"You're going to have to face facts here sometime, Turkey hun," I offered to her. "Next time I may not be around to clean you, so you best get used to doing it yourself."

Turkey shuffled a hoof over the floor and blushed, looking away. "I just..." she started, and I turned an ear to her while using my magic to clean the wet spots off of the floor.

"You just?" I repeated.

Turkey shrugged and flopped down on the floor, and I could clearly hear her stomach growl. My own decided to follow suit and I raised an eyebrow.

"Turkey? What time is it?" I asked, turning the faucet off and walking over to the lounge door to look out into the storefront. "It's still light outside, so it can't be evening yet."

"Around four in the afternoon, I would guess?" Turkey offered, happy for the change in subject.

"How would you come to that conclusion?" I wondered, looking back at her past my rump.

"Well, there were a lot of children coming in a little while ago," Turkey revealed. "The schools close around three and it takes them a bit to get from there to here, so it's somewhere between half past three and four."

"It's amazing how you were able to deduce that what with your hoof half buried in your crotch, hun," I joked, but Turkey immediately looked away again. I closed the door and wandered over, moving my right forehoof under her cheek and lifting it so she was looking at me.

"Hey, it's ok. I used to experiment as well when I was going through puberty," I offered to her rose eyes, and she stared up at my own blue ones. "It's a perfectly normal thing for mares to do. Don't let anypony tell you different."

"Yeah, but that's the whole problem, isn't it?" Turkey wondered, her cheeks flushing again.

"Is it?" I asked, letting my hoof drop and sitting down in front of the Pegasus mare to get on the same level with her.

Turkey nodded and started to look away, but as I raised my eyebrow she stopped herself. "Y...yeah, it is."

I shrugged and leaned in to kiss her on her nose. "So you weren't a mare before, big deal. The fact is that you are one now. Whatever you were when you were a human, it doesn't matter," I told her.

"It doesn't?" she asked, her ears flicking in confusion.

"No, hun. You're a pony in your own right, and cute to boot," I offered with a wink. "As for hoofing yourself off just now, I already said that that's natural. Don't be too embarrassed about it, ok? I'm not."

"You weren't the one getting fucked by a horn," Turkey muttered, then went wide-eyed and repeated it to herself. "I got fucked by a unicorn's horn..."

I rolled my eyes at her and used a hoof to give her a noogie. "Right, and if you're a good filly I may do it again."

Turkey's face blanked at the offer, and I shook my head at her in amusement.

"So, how about we figure out where that cinnamon smell comes from and we go steal us some food, hm?" I tried, changing the subject for the benefit of the turquoise Pegasus' mental health.


End file.
